Digital Commons Network^™

Canopy Nitrogen, Carbon Assimilation, And Albedo In Temperate And Boreal Forests: Functional Relations And Potential Climate Feedbacks, Scott V. Ollinger, Andrew D. Richardson, M E. Martin, David Y. Hollinger, Steve Frolking, Peter B. Reich, Lucie Plourde, G G. Katul, J W. Munger, R Oren, M.-L. Smith, K T. Paw, P V. Bolstad, B D. Cook, M C. Day, T A. Martin, Russell K. Monson, H P. Schmid

Earth Sciences

The availability of nitrogen represents a key constraint on carbon cycling in terrestrial ecosystems, and it is largely in this capacity that the role of N in the Earth's climate system has been considered. Despite this, few studies have included continuous variation in plant N status as a driver of broad-scale carbon cycle analyses. This is partly because of uncertainties in how leaf-level physiological relationships scale to whole ecosystems and because methods for regional to continental detection of plant N concentrations have yet to be developed. Here, we show that ecosystem CO₂ uptake capacity in temperate and boreal forests …

Environmental Issues In Russia, Laura A. Henry, Vladimir Douhovnikoff

Biology Faculty Publications

This review examines the literature available on the state of the environment and environmental protection in the Russian Federation. As the largest country on Earth, rich in natural resources and biodiversity, Russia's problems and policies have global consequences. Environmental quality and management are influenced by the legacy of Soviet economic planning and authoritarian governance, as well as by Russia's post-Soviet economic recession and current strategies of economic development. Russia achieved a reduction in some pollutants owing to the collapse of industrial production in the 1990s, but many environmental indicators suggest growing degradation. Russia has signed on to a number of …

An Emerging Triangle: Climate Change, Migration And Human Rights: The Case Of New Zealand,Tuvalu And Kiribati, Sarah Stefanos

Archived Theses and Dissertations

Three important global issues - climate change, migration, and human rights- form an emerging triangle because of their interrelatedness. However, critical analysis of the relationship between these three issues apart from an as yet legally meaningless discourse about an imminent global catastrophe of 250 million 'climate refugees' has been limited. This paper examines the climate change, migration, and human rights triangle through the lens of the Pacific, where some of the states most severely threatened by climate change can be found. Extremely small Pacific states whose inhabitants have lived on coral reef islands (called atolls) for more than 2000 years, …

Evaluating The Links Between Climate, Disease Spread, And Amphibian Declines, Jason R. Rohr, Thomas R. Raffel, John M. Romansic, Hamish Mccallum, Peter J. Hudson

Jason R. Rohr

Human alteration of the environment has arguably propelled the Earth into its sixth mass extinction event and amphibians, the most threatened of all vertebrate taxa, are at the forefront. Many of the worldwide amphibian declines have been caused by the chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), and two contrasting hypotheses have been proposed to explain these declines. Positive correlations between global warming and Bd-related declines sparked the chytrid-thermal-optimum hypothesis, which proposes that global warming increased cloud cover in warm years that drove the convergence of daytime and nighttime temperatures toward the thermal optimum for Bd growth. In contrast, the spatiotemporal-spread hypothesis …

Uncertainty, Climate Change, And Biofuels, Erin Baker

Conference on Cellulosic Biofuels

No abstract provided.

Biochar: A Carbon Negative Model For Umass Amherst, Susanne E. Hale

Conference on Cellulosic Biofuels

Biochar is a charcoal by-product of pyrolysis production of biofuels from biomass, which offers the potential for long-term, affordable carbon sequestration. Biochar in Amazonian soils have been found to be stable in the soil for hundreds to thousands of years. New pyrolysis technologies currently being developed may have the potential to be used in the future with the new UMass co-generation Central Heating Plant to produce syngas for powering plant turbines, while at the same time producing biochar for carbon sequestration, yielding a carbon negative system. Other benefits of biochar include increased soil fertility and crop yield, stimulation of the …

Book Review - Climate Change: A Guide To Carbon Law And Practice, Rebekah K. Maxwell

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

To Hell With Kyoto, It’S Time For Something Real!, Altdus Ray Frank

Altdus Ray Frank

The intended gift of clean air and pristine atmosphere through the inception of the Kyoto Protocol was meant to be a measure to protect the environment for not only the present generation, but the future as well. Instead of accepting this gift, humanity has yet again showed its darker side; shredding the ambitious purpose of this document and crucifying its creators as being overzealous, overbearing fools. People must come to terms and understand that environmental catastrophe is the single greatest threat faced by humanity today.

It is time for a new dawn, a new era where, the global community has …

Impact Of Climate Change On Irrigation Water Availability, Crop Water Requirements And Soil Salinity In The Sjv, Ca, Jan Hopmans, Edwin P. Maurer

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering

We examine potential regional-scale impacts of global climate change on sustainability of irrigated agriculture, focusing on the western San Joaquin Valley in California. We consider potential changes in irrigation water demand and supply, and quantify impacts on cropping patterns, groundwater pumping, groundwater levels, soil salinity, and crop yields. Our analysis is based on archived output from General Circulation Model (GCM) climate projections through 2100, which are downscaled here to the scale of the study area (~30 km across). We account for uncertainty in GCM climate projections by considering output from two different GCM's, each using three greenhouse gas emission scenarios. …

Future Changes In Snowmelt-Driven Runoff Timing Over The Western Us, Sara A. Rauscher, Jeremy S. Pal, Noah S. Diffenbaugh, Michael M. Benedetti

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Works

We use a high-resolution nested climate model to investigate future changes in snowmelt-driven runoff (SDR) over the western US. Comparison of modeled and observed daily runoff data reveals that the regional model captures the present-day timing and trends of SDR. Results from an A2 scenario simulation indicate that increases in seasonal temperature of approximately 3° to 5°C resulting from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations could cause SDR to occur as much as two months earlier than present. These large changes result from an amplified snow-albedo feedback driven by the topographic complexity of the region, which is more accurately resolved in a …

A Dynamic Analysis Of Human Welfare In A Warming Planet, Humberto Llavador, John E. Roemer, Joaquim Silvestre

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have caused atmospheric concentrations with no precedents in the last half a million years, inducing serious uncertainties about future climates and their effects on human welfare. Recent climate science supports the view that the climate stabilization will require very low GHG emissions in the future. We ask: Is a path of low emissions compatible with sustainable levels of human welfare? With steady growth in human quality of life? Addressing these questions requires both defining welfare criteria and empirically estimating the possible paths of the economy. We specify and calibrate a dynamic model with four intertemporal …

A Dynamic Analysis Of Human Welfare In A Warming Planet, Humberto Llavador, John E. Roemer, Joaquim Silvestre

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Climate science indicates that climate stabilization requires low GHG emissions. Is this consistent with nondecreasing human welfare? Our welfare index, called quality of life (QuoL), emphasizes education, knowledge, and the environment. We construct and calibrate a multigenerational model with intertemporal links provided by education, physical capital, knowledge and the environment. We reject discounted utilitarianism and adopt, first, the Intergenerational Maximin criterion, and, second, Human Development Optimization, that maximizes the QuoL of the first generation subject to a given future rate of growth. We apply these criteria to our calibrated model via a novel algorithm inspired by the turnpike property. The …

Decline In A Dominant Invertebrate Species Contributes To Altered Carbon Cycling In A Low-Diversity Soil Ecosystem, Byron J. Adams, J. E. Barrett, Ross A. Virginia, Diana H. Wall

Faculty Publications

Low-diversity ecosystems cover large portions of the Earth's land surface, yet studies of climate change on ecosystem functioning typically focus on temperate ecosystems, where diversity is high and the effects of individual species on ecosystem functioning are difficult to determine. We show that a climate-induced decline of an invertebrate species in a low-diversity ecosystem could contribute to significant changes in carbon © cycling. Recent climate variability in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica is associated with changes in hydrology, biological productivity, and community composition of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. One of the greatest changes documented in the dry valleys is …

Evangelizing Climate Change, Albert Lin

Albert C Lin

Any effective response to climate change must address greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from individuals, who are responsible for nearly one-third of total annual emissions. A leading proposal for doing so, developed by Michael Vandenbergh and Anne Steinemann, advocates the disclosure of information about an individual’s emissions, resulting harms, and steps that can be taken to reduce emissions. Providing information on individuals’ contribution to climate change will be important in countering common misconceptions that individual activities do not matter to the environment. Such proposals, however, give insufficient attention to the role of personal values. Values matter to efforts to change individual …

Homeland Security Challenges Of Global Climate Change, Patrick E. Tolan

Patrick E. Tolan Jr.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 directs military planners to consider the effects of climate change on national security. This directive is not surprising following a year of increasing concern about global warming and prognostications of the myriad ills that such warming will produce.

Although some excellent articles have recently been published exploring potential overseas consequences to the Department of Defense, this article instead outlines the perhaps even more significant national security threats to the U.S. homeland.

The article takes a three-pronged approach analyzing potential weather effects, refugee issues, and economic consequences that could be prompted by …

Living With Peak Discharge Uncertainty: The Self-Learning Dike, Jean-Luc De Kok, A. Y. Hoekstra

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Although river dikes still play a key role for flood protection in the Netherlands there is a growing interest for other measures to deal with larger peak discharges, such as lowering or widening the floodplains. Regardless of the strategy chosen the assessment of its effect on the flood risk depends on the peak discharge statistics. A problem here is that the statistical analysis of peak discharges relies on probability distributions based on the limited time series of extreme discharges. The extrapolation of these distributions are subject to considerable uncertainty, because there is a measuring record of only about 100 years …

Runoff Projection Sensitivity To Rainfall Scenario Methodology, Freddie S. Mpelasoka, F. H. S. Chiew

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Runoff characteristics are inextricably linked with climate, particularly the spatial and temporal patterns of precipitation and evapotranspiration. The need for demonstrably objective climate change scenarios consistent with what is realistic under global warming predicted conditions is increasingly growing. Global climate models (GCMs) are the best tools available for simulating global and regional climate for predicting future climate. However, GCMs provide information at a resolution that is too coarse to give results that can be directly used in hydrological studies. This paper quantifies three simple methods of rainfall scenarios construction informed by GCMs for their potential use in providing desirable future …

Raising The Bar – Is Evaluating The Outcomes Of Decision And Information Support Tools A Bridge Too Far?, K. B. Matthews, M. Rivington, K. L. Blackstock, K. Buchan, D. G. Miller

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper continues a series of reflections on the challenges of developing and deploying decision and information systems (DIST) for environmental management. Our focus is on the additional challenges being posed by funders to evaluate the outcomes (changes in the world beyond the research institute). This is a significant raising of the bar for DIST, particularly when many still struggle to overcome the simple hurdle of being used at all. The paper reflects on the challenge of evaluating outcomes, placing it in the context of conventional analysis of DIST performance (for example validation, software testing and utility assessment). Several particular …

Notes From A Climate Change Pressure-Cooker: Sub-Federal Attempts At Transformation Meet National Resistance In The Usa, Cinnamon P. Carlarne

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Shifting Ground To Address Climate Change: The Land Use Law Solution, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article conceives and describes a Land Use Stabilization Wedge: a strategy that aggregates these five wedges and further organizes strategic energies. This builds on Socolow’s optimistic assertion that “an excuse for inaction based on the world’s lack of technological readiness does not exist.” I assert that the existing legal authority of state and local governments to regulate and guide land use and building is a powerful “technology already deployed somewhere in the world.” The Land Use Stabilization Wedge aggregates several of Socolow’s initiatives and employs multiple mitigation techniques available to citizens in every locality in the country.

Numerical Analysis Of Non-Constant Pure Rate Of Time Preference: A Model Of Climate Policy, Tomoki Fujii, Larry Karp

Research Collection School Of Economics

When current decisions affect welfare in the far-distant future, as with climate change, the use of a declining pure rate of time preference (PRTP) provides potentially important modeling flexibility. The difficulty of analyzing models with non-constant PRTP limits their application. We describe and provide software (available online) to implement an algorithm to numerically obtain a Markov perfect equilibrium for an optimal control problem with non-constant PRTP. We apply this software to a simplified version of the numerical climate change model used in the Stern Review. For our calibration, the policy recommendations are less sensitive to the PRTP than widely believed. …

Sheep Updates 2008 - Part 3, L. J. E. Karlsson, J. C. Greeff, L. Slocombe, K. Jones, N. Underwood, Fred Wilkinson, W. D. Hoffman, W. A. Mckiernan, V. H. Oddy, M. J. Mcphee, B. L. Mcintyre, P. F. Parnell, R. A. Clark, J. Timms, G. Griffith, C. Mulholland, P. Hyland, Danielle England, Fiona Jones, John Lucey, Martin Staines, Richard Morris, Megan Abrahams, Caroline Peek, Dennis Van Gool, Daniel Gardiner, Kari-Lee Falconer, Sandra Prosser, Mario D'Antuono, John Young, Andrew Thompson, Chris Oldham, Brown Besier, Angus Campbell, Ralph Behrendt

Sheep Updates

This session covers fiveteen papers from different authors:

CONTROLLING FLY STRIKE

1. Breeding for Blowfly Resistance - Indicatoe Traits, LJE Karlsson, JC Greeff, L Slocombe, Department of Agriculture & Food, Western Australia

2.A practical method to select for breech strike resistance in non-pedigreed Merino flocks, LJE Karlsson, JC Greeff, L Slocombe, K. Jones, N. Underwood, Department of Agriculture & Food, Western Australia

3. Twice a year shearing - no mulesing, Fred Wilkinson, Producer, Brookton WA

BEEF

4. Commercial testing of a new tool for prediction of fatness in beef cattle, WD Hoffman^A, WA McKiernan^A, VH Oddy …

Assessing The Globally Averaged Sea Level Budget On Seasonal To Interannual Timescales, Josh K. Willis, D. Chambers, R Steven Nerem

Marine Science Faculty Publications

Analysis of ocean temperature and salinity data from profiling floats along with satellite measurements of sea surface height and the time variable gravity field are used to investigate the causes of global mean sea level rise between mid-2003 and mid-2007. The observed interannual and seasonal fluctuations in sea level can be explained as the sum of a mass component and a steric (or density related) component to within the error bounds of each observing system. During most of 2005, seasonally adjusted sea level was approximately 5 mm higher than in 2004 owing primarily to a sudden increase in ocean mass …

Slides: Adapting Western Water Policy For Resilience Under Climate Change, Bonnie G. Colby

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: Dr. Bonnie G. Colby, Professor of Resource Economics & Hydrology, University of Arizona Department of Agriculture & Resource Economics

22 slides

Slides: Beyond Rethinking: Redoing Western Water Law, Janet Neuman

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: Professor Janet Neuman, Lewis & Clark Law School

17 slides

Slides: Threats To Biological Diversity: Global, Continental, Local, J. Michael Scott

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: J. Michael Scott, U.S. Geological Survey, Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, University of Idaho

38 slides

Slides: Global Warming And The Endangered Species Act, Kieran Suckling

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: Kieran Suckling, Center for Biological Diversity

15 slides

Slides: Rethinking Western Water Law: Whatever Happened To The Public Interest?, Mark Squillace

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: Mark Squillace, Director, Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado Law School

15 slides

Rethinking Western Water Law: Instream Flows, Reed D. Benson

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: Reed D. Benson, University of New Mexico School of Law

1 page.

Sustainable Water Policies In The Rocky Mountain West: An Action Agenda, Sarah Bates

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: Sarah Bates, Western Progress

10 pages.

Includes bibliographical references

"Review Draft, May 15, 2008"